OVERFISHING threatens the survival of sea life in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, which stretches between Cape Ann and Cape Cod at the mouth of Massachusetts Bay. But the open-ocean sanctuary, home to 80 species of fish and 22 species of marine mammals, including the endangered humpback, fin, and right whales, is also in danger of being studied to death.
This week, after almost a decade of research and analysis, sanctuary officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a draft plan to protect one of the world's richest ocean feeding grounds. The authors absorbed information from hundreds of scientific articles and exhaustive meetings with environmentalists and commercial fishermen. But the report doesn't take a tough enough stand. A reticence runs through it.
It has been well-established that Stellwagen Bank is being degraded by bottom trawlers, whale entanglements, water quality problems, heavy cargo traffic, poor enforcement, and whale watch cruises and charter fishing. No one should be proposing across-the-board bans on such activities. But it is time that Stellwagen Bank lived up to its name. It is a national marine sanctuary - one of just 13 in the United States - not a national marine stock exchange.
The clout of the commercial fishing industry discourages sanctuary officials from recommending the kind of ocean zoning regulations that create "no-take" zones in marine sanctuaries, such as the one in Key West, Fla. There is evidence that the local fishing industry could survive the creation of a fully protected reserve within the Stellwagen Bank sanctuary, as well. For example, the report reveals that Stellwagen yields just 1.9 percent of the total value of commercial fishery landings in New England, and only 4.2 percent of the landings for Massachusetts.
Commercial fishermen are geniuses at staying afloat. But the same can't be said of cod, winter flounder, and other depleted ground fish stocks.
Instead of gently hinting at the need for creating no-take zones, the report's authors should explain how much of the sanctuary should serve purely as a research reserve, and where it should be located.
The easy stuff, like recommending buffer zones around ship wrecks, and some not-so-easy stuff, like changing shipping lanes to avoid whale strikes, is either on the table or underway. Now, Stellwagen officials must stand up for no-fishing zones. It's the only way to ensure the long-term survival of a marine sanctuary in the offshore waters of the Gulf of Maine.
